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The Indian 
ndustrial Schoo 



CARLISLE 
PENNSYLVANIA 



s Origin, Purposes, Progres 
and the Difficulties 
Surmounted 



By 

Brig. Gen. R. H. Pratt 

ITS SUGGESTER AND ITS SUPERINTENDENT FROM 
SEPTEMBER 1879 TO JULY 190L 



Written for, Printed and Circulated by the Hamilton Library Association 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 



QIFT 

ANNA L. D^WES 
SEPT. X7 1936 



V 



ORIGINOFTHE 

Carlisle Indian Industrial School 

ITS PROGRESS AND 
THE DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED 



HE original idea leading- to the establishment of the Carlisle Indian 
school cannot be traced farther back than Adam. It is clear that 
when Adam became the father of mankind there was then established 
that beneficent principle — the unity of the human race — which, through 
endless difficulties, still struggles for supremacy. It was a great set- 
back that immediately followed when one of Adam's sons killed the 
other. Jealousy, greed and misconception in the family have led to 
no end of killing among the sons of Adam from that day to this. For 
the last two thousand years this fundamental truth that all men are 
brothers has had great incentive from the divine living and teaching 
of it by the Son of the Father of the Universe, and while yet vast crime 
of all sorts has been, committed upon each other among the brotherhood, 
there has been a constant gain in its acceptance until in these later 
centuries nations have incorporated it as a principal feature in their 
charters. Foremost among these national declarations we must place 
our own. When, however, we declared the platform on which we 
founded our right to become a nation we were doing the greatest 
, violence to the principle itself in our treatment of two races, one alien, 
the other native, and this condition led to endless acrimony and vio- 
lence. Such was the abiding faith of the larger part of our people 
that when those opposed determined to build a government at variance 
with the principle we went to war, and at the cost of enormous sacri- 
fice of blood and treasure settled it in favor of the original declaration 
by giving especially to one race, but really including both races, in 
words, at least, a real place in our national family. This surely meant 
for them all the rights and privileges of educational, industrial and 
moral training and development needed to make them equrl, and com- 
petitors for the benefits of our American life. 

This paper was announced on the regular program of the Hamilton Library Association, but the pre- 
sentation was unavoidably prevented, and it is published now, as furnished, that there may be no further 
delay in bringing this interesting and valuable information before the public. 




[5] 



Carlisle school was clearly the product of these conditions. The 
sugoester and builder of the school never claimed originaHty or dis- 
covery of any sort. He did claim, apply and demand the same oppor- 
tunities and training for the Indian youth of the school that the other 
youth of the national family enjoyed. 

In his earlier years the suggester never saw an Indian, but a deep 
impression was made upon him by the pathetic singing of an Indian 
song by an early and accomplished friend, one verse of which ran as 
follows : 

Oh, why does the white man follow my path 

Like the hound on the tiger's track? 
Does the dusk on my dark cheek waken his wrath. 

Does he covet the bow at my back? 
He has rivers and seas where the billow and breeze 

Bear riches for him alone. 
And the sons of the wood never plunge in the flood 

Which the white man calls his own. 

Yoho, Yoho, Yoho, Yoho. 

Go back, go back on the hunter's track. 

The red man's eyes grow dim 
To think that the white man would wrong the one 

Who never did harm to him. 

Yoho, Yoho, Yoho, Yoho, Yoho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. 
Yoha, Yoho, Yoho, Yoho, Yoho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. 

This became a part of the song repertoire of the suggester of the 
Carlisle school, bringing a picture of unfortunate relations to his mind 
at every singing, on the march, in the camp or on lonely guard, 
throughout his military duties during the four years of Civil War. 
When, in 1867, he was called to service in the regular army, and sent 
to the southwestern fontier among the Indians, he was to some extent 
m,ore than his fellows sympathetic and willing to think of our Indians 
as entitled to more kindly consideration. Two days after joining his 
company at Fort Gibson, I. T., he was placed in command of the In- 
dian scouts, and at once looked upon them as men and brothers, lack- 
ing in attainment only, and that through no fault of theirs. His conten- 
tion with his fellow ofhcers and others whom he met was that the 
Indians were entitled to a full, fair chance for development in every 
way, and until they had that, our people had no right to form adverse 
opinions of them, or to condemn them as incorrigibly savage. His 
friendship for the Indians led to his being assigned to the special duties 
concerning them which usually fell to the lot of some particular ofhcer 
in every command contiguous to them. Experience with them only 
confirmed his previous feelings and judgments. He trusted them, used 
them in the performance of most dangerous duties, met with them in 
council and was gradually accepted as their friend and defender in the 
locality where he served. 



[6] 



In the spring- of 1869 (General (Irant ])r()n()uncc(l his first brief in- 
augural and in it gave his eonception of the nation's (hity to the Inchans 
in the following words : 

"The ]M-oper treatment of the original occupants of this land — -the 
Indians — is one deserving of the most careful study. I will favor any 
course towards them which tends to their civilization and ultimate 
citizenship." 

The officer at once adopted this as his platform and never in his 
long career cf dealing with the Indians did he waver from it. He was 
afterwards called upon in the execution of his office and orders to lead 
and direct bodies of Indians enlisted to battle against their own people, 
and to hold many of them as prisoners of war in irons, and to deport 
a company of seventy-four of their leaders so shackled thousands of 
m.iles from their homes and families and keep them in confinement for 
three years. He always and invariably tempered his actions, even in 
this trying service, according to General Grant's declared policy. 
Though prisoners of war under his care at old Fort Marion, Saint 
Augustine, Florida, in the year 1875-8, there was school for all of 
them, there was daily training in industries to earn money and to make 
them thrifty. There was constant opportunity and encouragement for 
them to meet multitudes of our own people under kindliest auspices. 
He organized the younger men into a company, gave them guns, sent 
the soldier guard away and for two years and nine months they guard- 
ed themselves and the fort without committing a single breach against 
the discipline established. The three years of imprisonment resulted 
in English speaking, in the adoption of civilized dress and habits and 
in a hungering on their part for a career in the larger life of the nation. 
They even petitioned bodily to be permitted to have their families and 
to remain away from their tribes and live among the whites, and this 
petition was submitted to the government and denied by the Indian 
bureau. Such was the effect upon them of these influences that when 
their three years of imprisonment ended, twenty-two of the younger 
men of their own free will asked to remain east three years longer, 
provided they could have larger school and training opportunities. 
This the department was willing to permit but only if it could be ac- 
complished without cost to the government. As soon as this fact be- 
came known among those having means among our own people, such 
was their confidence in the sincerity of the Indians, that the>- at once 
furnished money for the expenses of these twenty-two to remain east 
and have additional educational and industrial training. Prejudice and 
fear closed the doors of cjuite a number of industrial and agricultural 
schools that were appealed to until finally Hampton Institute, Virginia, 
a normal training school for colored youth, opened its portals for 
seventeen, and the other five were provided for near Utica and in Tar- 
rytown in New York state. The conduct and earnestness of these 
twenty-two soon attracted the attention of the highest officials of the 
government, including the president. At the suggestion of the officer 
the number at Hampton was increased by fifty youth of both sexes 

[7] 



who were brought by him and his wife from their homes along the 
Missouri river, inchiding Fort Berthold, Yankton agencies, and the 
agencies between. The quick improvement and the progress of the 
new recruits as well as of the older young men from Florida continued 
to prove that the Indian, like the Anglo-Saxon and the African, was 
only hampered by the circumstances and opportunities of his surround- 
ing's and responded to his privileges as promptly and successfully as 
either of the others. 

A law of congress was passed that an ofhcer of the army, not above 
the rank of captain, should be detailed by the War Department with 
reference to Indian education, which law aimed to keep the suggester 
of Carlisle on duty at Hampton Institute. His experience there had 
led him to conclude it was hot the best of help to the Indian to unite 
the two race problems ; that what the Indian needed was to gain 
ability to hold his own, and fellowship with the whites, and not with 
the negro. His mind wandered away to the West, to the needs of 
the larger field, and he urged that his presence at Hampton was en- 
tirely unnecessary, that the army officer already detailed there was 
more than able to meet the demands of the Indian situation at the 
school for the number then there and any increase that might be 
thought best. He accordingly went to the secretary of the interior first, 
and then, on the secretary's suggestion, to the secretary of war, pro- 
posing that if he were to be kept in Indian school work that he be 
given two hundred and fifty to three hundred young Indians at some 
point east, and be allowed to demonstrate their development, according 
to his own ideas. He suggested Carlisle barracks as a suitable place 
for this purpose. His proposition was at once accepted by both secre- 
taries and after several months of delay in attempting to get a law 
authorizing such a school and the use of the barracks, he was finally 
detailed to estabhsh the school at Carlisle and directed to proceed to 
the Indian agencies and get pupils. 

The head of the army. General Sherman, had not been friendly 
to detailing an army officer for Indian educational duty, and had writ- 
ten that officer that it was ''old woman's work," but the officer had to 
be governed by the fact that the president of the United States and 
the secretary of war, the superiors of the General of the Army, were 
directing his movements. They kept him in Washington interviewing 
members of the house and senate on Indian afifairs to convince them 
of the feasibility of his ideas. A proposed act was introduced into 
both house and senate, which provided that Carlisle, and any other 
vacant military post or barracks, could be turned over by the War 
to the Interior Department for Indian school purposes and that one 
or more army officers could be detailed to superintend each school so 
established. The passage of this act was not secured during the ses- 
sion of 1878-79 and did not become a law until 1882, but a very favor- 
able report was made to the house by Ex-Governor Pound of Wis- 
consin, who was a member of the house Indian committee. Seeing that 
congress would adjourn without passing the act the secretary of war 

[8] 



informed the officer he had made up his mind that he wouhl "tnrn 
over Carhsle barracks for an Indian school i:)ending- the action of con- 
gress on the bill," but first would sn1)mit the cjuestion to General Han- 
cock, who commanded the department in which Carlisle barracks was 
located, and then to the General of the Army. General Hancock's en- 
dorsement was favorable, and stated that the "barracks would never 
ag'ain be required for militar}^ purposes, and he knew of no more favor- 
able place for such an experiment." This being referred to General 
Sherman, he endorsed : "Approved, providing both Indian boys and 
girls are educated at said school." The order was then issued and the 
officer and his wife went to make a parting call on the General of the 
Army. The general received them with compliments and talked pleas- 
antly of previous meetings with them under circumstances of great 
danger from the Indians in the West. His gracious reception dis- 
pelled all anxiety on account of his previous opposition. 

When Carlisle barracks was being used as a training school for 
cavalry, the ministers of the town, in 1872, appealed to the War De- 
partment to stop the Sunday parades because they brought many peo- 
ple to witness and hear the band. At that time General Sherman said 
he would relieve their discontent by moving the cavalry school to 
St. Louis, which he did, and after that the barracks had remained vacant 
except for a small guard of an officer and a few enlisted men to take 
care of the property. In discussing the matter General Sherman said 
to the secretary of war : 

"The first thing you know after establishing your school the people 
of Carlisle will be petitioning to have some feature of the Indian school 
modified, or to have it removed." 

The secretary of war submitted this view to the officer and asked 
what had better be done about it. The officer replied that a good way 
would be to forestall that by securing a petition from the people to 
have the school established there. This was approved by the secretary 
and the officer accordingly started for Carlisle. At Harrisburg he met 
General Biddle, who lived at Carlisle, told him his mission, and General 
Biddle said : 

"You return to Washington and I will see that within two days 
you have a petition from practically everybody in Carlisle asking for 
the school." 

The petition came to the war department duly signed by all the 
leading people of the town. From that time to the close of his career 
of twenty-five years as superintendent of the school the officer found 
only the greatest friendship for his enterprise and for himself among 
the inhabitants of the town. 

One of the teachers of a class of Indian prisoners in Florida was 
a Miss Mather, who before the war had carried on a young ladies' 
school in the old town of Saint Augustine. She wrote that if an oppor- 
tunity offered she would like to see the Indians in their western homes. 
When the order was received in Washington on the 6th of September, 
the officer telegraphed her in Florida that he would leave on the loth 

[9] 



of Sc])tcinl)cr for Dakota to bring in children and asked her to go 
akong to k)()k after the girls. She arrived in due time, and they pro- 
ceeded to Dakota with instructions to get thirty-six from Rosebud 
agency, which was then dominated by Chief Spotted Tail, and thirty- 
six from Pine Ridge agency, whose principal chief was Red Cloud. 

On arrival at Rosebud the officer found that the agent had already 
received the order from the Indian office, and at a council had submit- 
ted it to the Indians, and they had resolved not to send children. The 
officer insisted that it was proper he should have a conference with the 
Indians and himself present the case. The chiefs and principal Indians, 
about forty, were summoned to the agency, and the officer, with the 
interpreter and Miss Mather, went w4th them into the council house. 
He explained the plans and purposes of the proposed school and urged 
the Indians to withdraw their opposition and send their children. The 
Indians sat in a circle and listened, but it was plain to the officer that 
their minds were against him. After a conference among themselves 
Spotted Tail answered for all. The recent treaty in which they had 
ceded the Black Hills country and which prevented their hunting and 
camping in that region had greatly angered them, especially when they 
found that gold had been discovered there. Spotted Tail began his 
address by saying: 

''The white people are all thieves and liars, and we refuse to send 
our children, because we do not want them to learn such things. The 
government deceived us in the Black Hills treaty. The government 
knew that gold was there and it took the land from us without giving 
us its value, and so the white people get rich and the Indians are cheat- 
ed and become poor. The government let us keep this plains country 
and it agreed that the lines should be away out, and we should have a 
large district. Your men are out there now running the lines and they 
run the lines a long ways inside of where we agreed they should be. 
Some of our people who lived outside of these lines have been com- 
pelled to move inside. The government has always cheated us and we 
do not want our children to learn to do that way." 

He said much more on the same line and his charges against the 
government were applauded by the assembled chiefs and the officer saw 
that this was the crucial moment of his enterprise. Guided by large 
experience, he replied : 

''Spotted Tail, you are a very distinguished man. Your name has 
gone all over the United States. It has even gone across the ocean to 
other countries. You are the head of these people because you have a 
strong mind, but Spotted Tail, you cannot read and write. You sign 
papers and you do not know what you sign. You know very little 
about the large interests of your tribal property and what is best for 
the people over whom you are placed, simply because you have no 
education. If you had been educated like the whites you might have 
known there was gold in the Black Hills, and how to get it out ; you 
might be there now with all these people directing them to get the 

[ID] 



g-okl out of the gTouiid, 1)ut you did uot know and so you were at a dis- 
advantag'e and k^st for your peopk' a vakial)le possession. 

"You accuse my government of deceiving- you. I'ishop Whi])])le 
made the treaty and I am sure no deception was practiced on you. I 
am sure that the treaty papers which you sig-ned (Ustinctly state that 
the Hnes woukl be run around your present reservation just where 
these young men are running them. If these young men sitting" here 
had been educated and knew as much as the young men who are out 
there running the hues they might be filHng the places of those young 
men, getting $ioo to $200 per month for doing that work for the gov- 
ernment, but because they are uneducated they lose these chances. I 
am your friend and the friend of your people, and am near Washington. 
It might be that something will come up there in the affairs of your 
people that it would be best for only you and I to know, and that I 
would like to tell you of, but I cannot write to you and tell you of it 
because a third party, this interpreter or somebody else, has to be 
called in to read my letter to you, so I have to let it go. You might 
want me to do something for you in Washington and you would like 
to write me, but do not want anybody else to know about it, but you 
cannot tell me what you want me to do because you cannot read and 
write. In either case neither of us can be sure we get exactly what 
the other intended to say because in the interpretation the exact thought 
or idea might not be given as intended. You are a man of large mind ; 
there are others here who have large minds. I have no doubt but if 
you had been properly trained as a young man and had the same op- 
portunities our people have you might be filling some high position in 
the land, but lacking in education and experience in our afifairs you are 
not able to protect the interests of your own people. You have seen 
how the white people keep coming more and more. When a boy you 
very seldom saw a white man ; now they are covering the country all 
around you. There is no more chance for your people to keep them- 
selves away from the whites. You are compelled to meet them. Your 
children will have to live with them. They will be all about and among 
you in spite of anything you can do, or that can be done for you by 
those interested in keeping you apart from our people. Your own wel- 
fare while you live and the welfare of your children after you, and all 
your interests in every way, demand that your children should have 
the same education that the white man has, that they should speak his 
language and know just how the white man lives, be able to meet him 
face to face and take care of themselves and their property without 
the help of either an interpreter or an Indian agent. Your children 
can acquire these qualities by no method that separates them from 
close contact with our people and these actual experiences. I propose 
not only to take your children to the school at Carlisle, but I shall send 
them out to work and to live among the white people, and into the 
white man's home and schools so that as boys and girls they will be 
coming into the same classes wath white boys and girls and will so 
learn to know each other, and this will take away their prejudice against 

[II] 



the whites and take away the prejudice of the whites against your people, 
and it is the only way to remove such prejudice. 

"I am sure this is a great turning point in the history of your 
people. It is far more important to you than you can possibly think 
or understand. 

"Spotted Tail, you have many children, give me some of them, 
and let me take them to Carlisle and teach them our language, how 
to read and write and do business as we do, so that they may come 
back and help you in your position as chief of this people. 

"Milk, you have two children, let me take them to Carlisle and 
make them able to be useful to you, and useful to themselves and their 
people hereafter by their knowledge of our ways and our language. 

"Two Strike, you have two boys, let me take them to Carlisle and 
make men of them. 

"White Thunder, you have a boy and girl, give them to me for 
education. 

"I asked the commissioner to let me go after pupils to the Indians 
I knew, and who knew me, the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas, Com- 
anches. Apaches and others, but the secretary wanted me to begin here 
because yours is the largest of all the tribes, and he said you should 
have the first chance, and if you refused, then I might go and get all 
the children needed from these other tribes who know me. You had 
better council again about it, I will go over to the agent's house and 
wait for your answer." 

The interpreter, Miss Mather and I walked over and sat on the 
agent's porch for more than an hour before the council broke up. 
When the Indians came outside they stood for quite a while in front 
of the council house talking and looking our way ; finally, Spotted Tail, 
Two Strike, White Thunder and Milk, the principal chiefs whom I vhad 
spoken to personally, came over and sat down without any demonstra- 
tion. They kept talking to each other in an undertone, and looked me 
over critically. After a few moments Spotted Tail got up, came and 
shook hands with me, then with Miss Mather and the interpreter, and 
said : 

"It is all right. We are going to give you all the children you 
want. I am going to send five. Milk will send his boy and girl. Two 
Strike his two boys. White Thunder will send his boy and girl, and the 
others are going to send the rest." 

This part of the beginning of the school has always seemed about 
the most momentous of its history. 

I then told them I would have to go to Pine Ridge after a similar 
party, and that I would be back again in four or five days, that they 
could make up their minds just which children they wanted to send 
and when I got back I would see the children and have them examined 
by the doctor to see that they were strong and healthy, and then make 
up the list. I asked them if there were an Indian who had a spring 
wagon and two good, stout ponies that could drive the hundred miles 
from Rosebud to Pine Ridge agency in one day, that I would give 

[12] 



him $25.00 foi: taking mc to Pine Ridge and bringing me back. Hiat 
I wanted to start next morning at 7 o'ck)ck and be in Pine Ridge at 
night. They talked a Httle and said an IncUan named Cook, who was 
going to send a daughter with me, was the man. I asked them to send 
Cook to me ; he reported, and we made arrangements and started the 
next morning at 7 o'clock. It was a silent journey as I could speak 
no Sioux, and Cook could speak no English or Comanche, the only 
Indian language of which I knew anything, and he did not know the 
sign language, of which I had some knowledge. The ponies were 
short, thick set and hardy, and I soon realized that the Indians had 
made a good selection. Where the road was favorable he drove his 
ponies at high speed and by 2 o'clock we had made about half w^ay. 
We stopped to rest and graze the ponies and eat our lunch. The road 
was dim and sometimes no road, but a generally westerly direction was 
maintained and I felt sure we were going right. When night came on 
there was no moon, but it was starlight, and without abating opeed 
the Indian drove on and on. Towards 10 o'clock we saw in the dis- 
tance a light, but it was a long time before we reached it and found the 
agent's office and the agency clerk (Mr. Alder, for many years and 
now the clerk at Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas), busy trying to 
keep up with his work. Early the next day he called a council of the 
Indians at which Red Cloud, American Horse, Young Man Afraid of 
His Horses and others of the leaders were present. I submitted the 
wishes of the department to them, and told them what Spotted Tail 
and his people were going to do, and they agreed to send some of 
their children. Red Cloud had no children of his own young enough, 
but said he would send a grandson. American Horse sent three. It 
soon developed there was an outside influence against the children 
being sent away, and after two days there I was only able to get 
eighteen. I hired parents of the children to haul the party the two 
hundred miles from Pine Ridge to Rosebud Landing on the Missouri 
river. There were then no railroad facilities nearer than Yankton, 
Dakota, a considerable distance below Rosebud Landing, and reached 
by steamer. 

The day before starting back I sent Cook with his two horses to 
ride half way and wait for my coming the next day, and hired another 
Indian with fresh horses to drive me that far, he and Cook having an 
understanding as to the point we were to meet. After seeing the 
party oflf the next morning, we started and drove rapidly until early in 
the afternoon, when we found Cook and lunched together. The In- 
dian went back to Pine Ridge and Cook and I drove through to the 
Rosebud agency that night. 

Selecting children at Rosebud had gone on so well that more than 
enough to cover the shortage at Pine Ridge and give the full number 
required from the two agencies had been provided. The children at 
both agencies were submitted to an examination something similar to 
that for army recruits, a record of the examination made, and fifty-four 
were accepted and enrolled at Rosebud. The afternoon after the party 

[13] 



wils completed there was a demonstration, the Hke of which I nevef 
saw 1)ut the once among Indians. It appeared to be their custom when 
stirred by any great reason for joy that those who were foremost 
participants and causes of it gave something of their possessions to the 
poor, and entertained and fed others of the tribe. More than two 
thousand people gathered at the agency and those sending children 
gave away scores of horses and ponies, many bolts of calico and muslin, 
large quantities of groceries, etc., they had purchased at the store. 
Many cooked food, which was free to all. One man occupied the arena 
at a time and himself announced : 

"I am sending my children, my heart is glad and I give six horses." 

He had six sticks in his hand and said : 

"Where is there an old woman who needs a horse?" 

Some tottering old woman would go forward and take a stick and 
it was plain to be seen that she felt happy. He would then say : 

"Where is there an old man who has no horse?" 

Then some old man would go forward, and so on until he had 
given away the six sticks which represented horses that he had selected 
which the recipients could have by going to his home ; each stick had a 
mark to indicate which horse. A few had brought horses with them ; 
sitting on their horses they held the horses they were to give away 
with lariats. They announced that they were sending son or daughter, 
and "Here is a horse for an old man or old woman," and the old man 
or woman would go forward and take the horse. In every case, so far 
as I could see, the gifts were only to the needy. All was conducted with 
entire propriety and decorum and everybody acquiesced in the claim 
of the recipient in every case, and there was on the part of all those 
who received the gifts evidence of great satisfaction. One Indian had 
a daughter who was a belle in the tribe ; the father was a manly, hand- 
some fellow as he sat erect on his bareback horse and proud of his 
daughter. He had brought to give away one of the prettiest Indian 
ponies I ever saw. I soon found that the pony was also celebrated. 
Miss Mather, then 63 years of age, said : 

'T am an old woman and I have no pony. If they will give me that 
pony I will take it home to Florida with me." 

Spotted Tail, who was standing near, was told by the interpreter 
what she said, and he replied : 

"All right, when he calls for somebody you go forward and get it." 

So Miss Mather moved into the circle ready to get the horse. The 
man told he was sending his daughter and because he felt so glad he 
was giving this pony. Miss Mather moved forward, but after making 
his speech the Indian pulled his pony up to his side and said : 

"Anybody that catches this pony can have it." And then slipping 
the noose over its head turned it loose and the pony at once bounded 
away through the crowd Hke a deer. Instantly fifty or more young 
Indians mounted their ponies and were in pursuit, and before the afifair 
was over one of them came back leading the pony, greatly pleased that 
he had gotten it. 

[14] 



Having;' the coniplcniciit of scvtMit x-tvvo authorized l)v the depart- 
ment at Tine Ivicli^e and l\ose1)U(l. I also hired tlie i)arents of tlie ehil- 
dren at Rosel)n(l to lianl their ehihh'en to the hin(hn;_^- to start the fol- 
lowing- morning and make the trip in two days. 

I was immecHately l)esieg"e(l l)y other parents who wanted to send 
chihh-en, and the pressure becoming great 1 did agree to take several 
others whom tlie doctor said were all right. Many other Indians than 
those inmiediately interested went to the landing, so that we had (juite 
a caravan. After we reached the river additional children were urging 
to go, both parents and children anxious to have a part in the move- 
ment. The steamboat came, the children were put aboard, but when I 
came to count them I found that there were eighty-two instead of the 
seventy-eight I had accepted. I hunted out those who had not been 
inspected, but so anxious were they to go, and parents in their desire 
to send, and such good material, as I judged, I finally agreed to take 
the whole eighty-two. 

On reaching Yankton I secured two special cars to take us through 
to Chicago, and telegraphed to Chicago for cars thence to Carlisle. 
Crowds met us at every point, and when we reached Chicago, the pa- 
pers having published our coming, many thousands of people were in 
and about the station to see us, and such was the pressure that the 
railroad authorities were compelled to run our cars out in to a private 
yard with a high fence around it to keep us from the crowd. Even 
then scores of men and boys jumped the fence and got inside to see 
the young Indians who were going so far from home to school. 

Gettysburg Junction is on the eastern edge of the town of Carlisle, 
and nearer to the barracks than the station in town, and I arranged 
to have the party stop there. We reached the Junction at i o'clock in 
the morning of the 6th of October, 1879, and were met by hundreds 
of people waiting up at that late hour to see us, and they followed us 
into the school grounds. 

Hampton had kindly let me have eleven of the young men that 
were with me in Florida wdio spoke English and who had learned 
proper ideas of discipline and conduct and could give good help at 
the beginning. They at once undertook the care of these new boys. 
There was no fence or protection around the gounds and so curious 
and large was the crowd of people daily that I telegraphed the depart- 
ment and asked to build a picket fence seven feet high to protect and 
keep the Indians in and the whites out, until we could get in shape. 
I purchased the material and set the Florida young men to work under 
the direction of a carpenter, and with the help of the new boys we 
soon had a fence around the twenty-seven acres. 

Before starting for Dakota I had sent two of the Florida party, 
a Kiowa named Etahdleuh, and a Cheyenne named Okahaton, to their 
respective agencies to make up parties of students for Carlisle. In a 
week things were in such running order that I could leave the care 
of the pupils in the hands of Mrs. Pratt and several helpers I had em- 
ployed, among them the principal teacher. Miss Semple, the girls' 

[15] 



matron, Miss ri\(lc, and the principal of the Sewing Department, Mrs. 
Wortliins^ton, ancl some friends who had come to Carhsle to help, and 
I went west to Wichita in southern Kansas with Miss Mather, where 
I had instructed the 3^oung men to bring- their parties of students. I 
had em])loved a former teacher among the Indians, Mr. Standing, 
whose home at that time was near Lawrence, Ivansas, to go to the 
Pawnees and get children. These three parties concentrated as ar- 
ranged and numbered forty-seven. Mr. Standing accompanied us to 
Carlisle and became my assistant superintendent, and for over twenty 
years served the school with great faithfulness. 

The second party reached Carlisle in time to open school on the 
1st of November, 1879. Before starting for Dakota I had made recjuisi- 
tion on the Indian Bureau for food, clothing, books, desks and material 
to begin school. Nothing had arrived when I returned from Dakota 
and I again appealed to the commissioner, urging that the supplies 1:»e 
forwarded at once. On my second return with the party from the 
territory I found no supplies, and again began my appeals and urgency. 
Among the things I had requested was an organ, the least necessary of 
all, but that was the first to arrive. Finally clothing, desks, books and 
food supplies came. All of the children from Dakota reached Carlisle 
in their camp condition, with the long hair, blankets, leggins, mocca- 
sins, etc., of their Indian life. During my absence for the second party 
Mrs. Pratt, under my direction, hired a barber and had the boys' hair 
cut. This was the occasion of some loud lamentations on their part, 
which lasted well into the night, until Mrs. Pratt summoned , the in- 
terpreter and told him that the noise w^ould disturb the people of the 
town and that the children must keep quiet, and they immediately com- 
plied. 

I had obtained many practical ideas in regard to industrial training 
during my boyhood days and in my experiences in Florida, and to 
these I had added much from being at Hampton a year. It was to be 
a thoroughly practical industrial school, so that the industries taught 
would, as far as could be done in a school, enable the young Indians 
to go out and work at what they had learned. To me it was inevitable 
that eventually the Indians would have to hold their own among the 
whites through practicing the accomplishments of the whites and un- 
cared for by bureau or agent. Practical journeymen mechanics were 
engaged to teach the trades, shops were established and all the products 
were real articles to be used in the school or sent to the western 
agencies as evidence to the Indians of what their children were doing. 
The school room work was to go on just as it would in any white 
school. There would be no fads of any sort, and nothing was to be 
done in the way of catering to the pupils because they were Indian 
children. We were dealing with those who must eventually become 
independent, useful American citizens. To properly develop them as 
such there was only one way which was to give them the intelligence 
and industry of citizens. Universally consigned to an agricultural life 
by the government's allotment system, where and how can the Indian 

[16] 



youth l)c licttcr taiis^ht farmins^- skill and industry than on farms and 
under the tuition and pressinj^- necessities of our best farmers? It 
alway s seemed to me a very simple procedure and the only way that 
promised success. 

The school opened with one hundred and forty-seven pupils from 
seven tribes. For disciplinary purposes the boys and girls were or- 
o-anized into companies, with officers among- themselves to march them 
to and from the school and dining room, and who were made respon- 
sible for their companies in the dormitories. To maintain discipline 
when serious offences occurred courts were instituted, composed of 
the students themselves, and the facts of the case brought before them, 
when they gave judgment of guilt and recommended punishment and 
the superintendent approved or modified. This system was begun at 
once and continued throughout all the years, and was without material 
exception most satisfactory. It greatly relieved the management and 
established in the minds of the students consideration of the principles 
of right and wrong and gave them experience in jury duty and the 
administration of justice. 

To carry on industrial training in connection with the school and 
make such divisions of time as would utilize both systems in the highest 
degree was a problem. After experimenting on short periods of shop 
work each forenoon and afternoon, as I had learned at Hampton, it 
soon developed that the best results were not to be had in that way, 
and a system of half-day work and half-day school, with an evening 
study hour for all, was established, and this proved so advantageous 
that it was continued and came to be used in all Indian schools. Half 
the students were in school in the forenoon and the other half at work ; 
in the afternoon these were reversed. Subsequently, it seemed a better 
plan to reverse the whole order once a month so that students who 
were in school in the forenoon one month were in school the afternoon 
the next month. 

The mechanical work of the school, even to the erection of build- 
ings, was performed by the students under the direction of their in- 
structors. While many excellent results were obtained, especiall}^ where 
students who had learned trades at Carlisle, went out into the world 
to improve and use them, there were two drawbacks to highest success 
that ought to be noted. One was the fact that we were unable, from 
the very nature of the case, to give our students the real, practical, 
competitive skill required for fully equipped journeymen mechanics. 
One instructor had to teach many apprentices, whereas the old appren- 
tice system usually placed one apprentice under the instruction and 
observation of a number of journeymen mechanics, with whom he 
competed all day. Many apprentices under one instructor gives com- 
petitive power only among themselves. 

The other feature is that the bureau system hires the Indian stu- 
dent to return and remain a part of his tribe, through sharing in tribal 
annuities, tribal funds, tribal lands, tribal associations, tribal surround- 
ings, under the baneful influence of privileged traders, money sharks 

[17] 



and hosts of (lc!.>cncrating- schemers who fatten on specially authorized 
op])ortnnitic s nmong" the Indians. Such a thing as fitting him for and 
then pushing lum out into the ordinary afifairs and avenues of the in- 
dustrial life of the nation as we do our own youth forms no part of 
the l])ureau's schemes. In the tribes on the reservations the only sub- 
stantial emj^loyer of mechanics or labor of any sort is the government, 
through its Indian agent and agency system. Only a limited number 
of mechanics and helpers are allowed, so that feature helps to prevent 
material success. Where lands are allotted to the Indians the allot- 
ments are usually contiguous to each other, which urges them to con- 
tinue to live in tribal masses, and the allotting of lands really amounts 
to little more than a reservation reducing process. The original allot- 
ting theory was to put the Indians on their lands and require each In- 
dian to farm his own land, but the practice became at once almost, 
universal, particularly among the less civilized Indians, to have the 
ag-ent lease the lands to white men under bureau approval, collect the 
rental and pay it over to the individual allottee. This makes more 
business and work for the management and less for the Indian. The 
result has been that tribal disintegration and the individuality inevitable 
to real citizenship is scarcely promoted. I urged and contended when 
lands in severalty was under discussion that allotments should be made 
of alternating quarter sections so as to sandwich Indians and white 
men, which would mix interests and give the Indian a chance to see 
and pattern after his white neighbor whichever way he turned. 

Physical development in the school, notwithstanding the labor 
features, was found to be necessary in the very start, and soon a gym- 
nasium was established and the students trained in its use and also in 
outdoor sports. The rude gymnasium in the old cavalry stables grew 
to a fine and well equipped gymnasium, 150x60 feet, in which hundreds 
of boys or girls could be exercising at the same time. Calisthenics 
were introduced and great proficiency and fine order secured. Outdoor 
sports, track work, baseball and football were scientifically developed 
under the most expert instruction. The football, baseball and track 
teams were brought into competition with the very best organizations 
of our colleges and universities, and soon came to hold their own on 
every field. It is not too much to claim that Carlisle's football team has 
in all probability in the past ten years played its games under the 
observation of as many people as any other team in the country. 

The co-operation of the difTerent churches and Sunday schools in 
Carlisle was sought, especially for those who had come from various 
missionary influences at their homes, and this was cheerfully given. 
The personal friendships and interests between the good people of the 
town and the students that grew from this association increased every 
year throughout the history of the school and was of inestimable value 
to the students and the school. The Indian boys in the Sunday schools 
of the town were invariably under the care of excellent teachers. 

A Sunday school was established on the school grounds for the 
girls, small boys and the larger boys who were not sufficiently advanced 

[18] 



to profital)ly attend Sunday schools with white children. This was 
carried on by the teachers and other eni|)loyes of the school and was 
also most promotive in the moral trainino- of the Indian youth. After 
about ten years the Catholic authorities 1)eo-an to insist on having" their 
children exclusively under their care for all church purposes, and it 
was so arranged. 

In addition there was instituted in the beginning on the school 
grounds, and continued throughout, a Sunday afternoon preaching ser- 
vice and Sunday evening praise service, at which students were re- 
quired to be present. The preaching services were conducted by the 
dififerent pastors of the town or one of the professors of Dickinson 
College, Dr. McCauley, president of the college, gave the first few 
services ; after that for several years Dr. Lippincott, one of the pro- 
fessors, and then the pastors of the town alternated with the professors 
of the college. 

The interest of the college authorities from the beginning and 
throughout my twenty-five years of service as superintendent of the 
Indian school was valuable and unswerving. When the education of 
the young Indians reached a point where they could enter the prepara- 
tory department of the college, or the college proper, some of the best 
pupils of the school were entered and practically without intermission 
thereafter students of the Indian school were in attendance at the pre- 
paratory and college for the last twenty years of my supervision. 

A Young Men's Christian Association and King Daughters Circle 
were established at an early date at the Indian school and the friendly 
relations between these organizations and the college, town, state and 
national organizations were of the most cordial and helpful nature. 

The greatest value accruing to the Indians from having their chil- 
dren attend schools surrounded by the best influences of our American 
civilization is found in the multitude of opportunities for bringing the 
two races in contact with each other along lines that mean better un- 
derstanding and help to both. The experience with the prisoners in 
Florida had fully established this fact. During the year at Hampton 
this was urged upon the management there, and General Armstrong, 
on the officer's suggestion, sent him with an Indian to help Deacon 
Hyde of Lee, Mass., find homes, and the young men who had been 
under his care in Florida were placed as farm helpers in Berkshire 
County, Mass., during the summer of 1878, and Hampton has con- 
tinued this outing ever since. 

The first summer at Carlisle places were found and twenty-four 
boys and girls were sent out into individual homes in the country con- 
tiguous to the school to work -for pay, live in and be treated as mem- 
bers of the family, and to generally conform to the habits and customs 
of the home life of our best agricultural population. The families were 
selected with care, but ignorance of English, lack of previous training 
and industry, and in some cases the fears of the people or student, led 
to many lapses. Nearly half of the young people failed to stick to their 

[19] 



work through the summer and had to be brought or were sent back 
to the school 

The following year, 1881, one hundred and nine students were 
placed out, largely in Bucks County, and in the country around Phila- 
delphia. Experience had shown that it was better to send the children 
far enough away from the school to make their return a matter of some 
difficulty. The school's report to the Indian office for that year indi- 
cates that "the outing," as it came to be called, was a great success. 
A number of encomiums from their employers were printed in the 
annual report to the Indian office. It was arranged that some of the 
students should remain out during the winter, work for their keep 
and attend public schools ; six girls and twenty-three boys were thus 
left out for the winter of '81 and '82. 

The school had a total attendance during the second year of two 
hundred and ninety-five, representing twenty-four tribes and languages. 

The report for the third year contains the following : "No feature 
of the work is more productive of good results than that of temporary 
homes for our students in good families. In this way barriers and 
])rejudice between the races are removed and the Indian youth have 
an opportunity to measure their capabilities with white youth. The 
order and system so necessary in an institution retards rather than 
develops self-reliance and forethought. Individuality is lost. They 
grow into mechanical routine. The thousand petty emergencies of 
everv-dav family life they do not have to meet. Placed in families 
where they have individual responsibility, the}' receive training that no 
school can give." 

On account of the large number going home that year only eighty- 
nine were placed out ; forty-eight, how^ever, were allowed to remain out 
to attend public school during the following winter. Each patron hav- 
ing an Indian was required at the close of the year to give a report 
upon his or her conduct. The general quality of these reports was 
most excellent, and became part of the superintendent's annual report 
to the Indian office. 

This admirable feature of the school's curriculum continued to 
grow year after year, until the numbers placed out each summer and 
the amount of money earned was remarkable. In 1900 the school had 
twelve hundred and eighteen pupils from seventy-nine different tribes ; 
of these eight hundred and ninety-three had outing experience ; their 
total earnings for the summer amounted to $27,255.52, of which they 
saved $15,518.39. The total earnings of the students for that year and 
the eleven previous years amounted to $226,255.84. In 1902 nine hun- 
dred and twenty-eight boys and girls were placed out for summer work 
and their earnings amounted to $31,619.15. The school records show 
that they had at the close of the outing period for that year %^2,2i'^7-79 
saved and at interest, and that three hundred and sixty-one remained 
out for the winter attending public schools. In 1903, the last year this 
officer made a report, there were nine hundred and forty-eight boys 
and girls placed out and their united earnings amounted to $31,393.02. 

[20] 



Three hniulred and five reniained out and attended ]nil)lic seliool that 
winter. 

The Hniit of the school room acc[uirenient was fixed at aljout lialf 
way l)etween the g-rammar and high school grades and it was 1889, ten 
years after the school was established, before we were able to bring a 
class to graduation. None of our original students appeared in that 
class or any subsequent class. In the beginning we had to fix a period 
at wdiich we returned the pupils to their homes. Three years was agreed 
upon and this was conformed to until 1887 when we secured a change 
to five years. Experience show^ed that it took about the same average 
time to bring the Indian youth through the grades we had established 
that it did the white youth in the public schools, and this was accom- 
plished notwithstanding the Indian had the apparent difiiculty of lan- 
guag"e to overcome. It was found that lang-uag^e was not a real 
difficulty, for the young Indian during the first months of learning to 
read also learned the English language. English was early estab- 
lished as the one medium of the school. Therefore, a new pupil had 
to learn it, which he hustled to do in order to be at home among his 
fellows. The multiplicity of tribes represented, enabled a mixing of 
tribes in dormitory rooms. The rooms held three to four each and it 
was arranged that no two of the same tribe were placed in the same 
room. This not only helped in the acquirement of English but broke 
up tribal and race clannishness, a most important victory in getting 
the Indian toward real citizenship. The alleged economy in money 
argued in favor of day schools and boarding schools where all the 
pupils are from one tribe with large dormitory rooms is more than 
lost in this one item alone through the cultivation of tribal clannish- 
ness during education. In America all of our many alien white races 
are merged and origins lost and not one of our ten millions of negroes 
can tell his tribal origin simply because all these have been forgotten 
through constant participation in American opportunities. Segregated 
and denied opportunity of real American association the native In- 
dians remain tribady intact in a discouraging equivocal position be- 
cause tag-ged as Penobscots in Maine, Mashpees in Massachusetts, Sene- 
cas in New York, etc., and so far the prevailing design sems to be to 
keep Indians everywhere encumbered with unending tribal conditions. 
Certain it is we can never make the Indians real, useful American citi- 
zens by any systems of education and treatment which enforce tribal 
cohesion and deny citizenship associations. 

The Indian Bureau and its reservation system is now and always 
has been the guilty cause of their continued ignorance and undeveloped 
condition. The government, therefore, owes to them widest opportunity 
and it will be small amends to give them the best chances for individual 
contact with our people and that practical education and industrial de- 
velopment which alone is calculated to fit them for the individual com- 
petitions of citizenship. 

We show great vigor and indulge in vast expense to develop our 
many resources, land, mining, transportation, agriculture, etc., but 

[21] 



when it comes to this red man and the possibihties of his developed 
al)iht\ to hel]) i)r()(hice instead of consume our national wealth, we 
weaken and L^ive more money to encourage the man in manageable 
ignorance than we do to develo]) him into a real independent civilized 
useful man and citizen. 

We seem to liave a |)ride in k'ceping him crude and rough that we 
ma\- place that feature of him on exhibition. During the last three 
years al e\cM-\ great convention in Denver, the Grand Army, the Elks, 
etc., Indians in their native dress have been brought from their remote 
reservations and in exadurated paint and feathers made a distinctive 
parade feature and there is no hesitation in officially favoring the 
educated xoung Indians being prominent in these processions and 
then in ofticialh' calling public attention to such educated Indians with 
a view to disparage their education. That the civilization of a helpless 
dependent race should wait upon and be subject to such inanity is 
wholly inexplicable. 

The promise of just as good schools and just as good training in 
the home school made by agents and others anxious to perpetuate 
tribal conditions is impossible of realization. Never can the best 
equipped and managed home school at all compare with the suitably 
located and properly managed non-reservation school in power to de- 
velop and influence to build real citizens4iip. Whenever the commis- 
sioner of Indian affairs is an enemy of non-reservation schools and 
thus encourages resistance to them among the reservation employees 
and the Indians, and promotes restricting regulations against pupils 
going to the non-reservation schools and favorable to their remaining 
in the home schools there will soon eventuate the end to such non- 
reservation schools through lack of pupils, notwithstanding the will 
and appropriations of Congress to the contrary. 

The allegation that the day school and its product lifts the Indian 
home more rapidly than the non-reservation school and its product is 
a myth confirmed as such by all experience. The day school child 
never learns how to lift the home because the child itself is kept on 
the level with the home. Such education makes no real citizens, but 
does keep up the long drawn out supply of tribal Indians. The only 
Indians who become equal to the duties and affairs of our American 
life are those who go out from the reservations and so become trained 
and experienced in these duties. 

Perhaps the greatest public influence exerted bv the Carlisle school 
through these illustrations of its benefits in the presence of all the 
people and especially to the legislative and executive officers of the 
government was found in the rapid acceptance of its principles and the 
building of many other schools intended to be patterned after it. Im- 
mediately after the school was started the Indian Bureau determined 
that there ought to be a Hke school at Forest Grove. Oregon, for the 
Pacific Coast, and accordingly an army officer. Captain Wilkinson, was 
detailed to organize and superintend it. The school was afterwards 
removed to Chemawa, near Salem, the capital of Oregon, and continued 

[22] 



to oTow until it is now one of the larg'cst non-reservation Indian 
schools. Snch schools as Haskell Institute in Kansas, (icnoa in Ne- 
braska, Albiuiuerque in New Mexico, and a score of others followed 
on. Not in one of these schools, however, did they carry out with 
any zeal the outing- system which was the main and 1)y far the most 
helpful feature at Carlisle, and the one o-reat reason in favor of non- 
reservation schools. The Indian Bureau began early to militate against 
the non-reservation schools. Its first efforts were largely exerted to 
have new non-reservation schools located as near the reservation as 
possible and very many of the later schools were so placed. This feat- 
ure practically eliminated the outing at such schools, for it was much 
easier for the pupils to run away from their outing homes and go to 
their reservations, and such schools became scarcely better than reser- 
vation boarding schools. The non-reservation schools near the In- 
dians also failed in attendance from this condition and became edu- 
cators in running away, so that the non-reservation effort was some- 
what nullified and brought into disrepute from this source. However, 
there was some good in the fact that all the non-reservation schools 
received pupils from different tribes, which broke up tribal clannishness 
and hastened the acquirement of English. The barrier of language is 
the great wall between the whites and the Indians. That broken down, 
the Indians can get information and instruction from everybody and 
much more rapidly learn to take care of themselves as citizens. On 
some of the principal reservations the bureau increased the day schools 
and reservation boarding schools to the extent of caring for about all 
the youth on such reservations, so there were few or none to spare 
for the non-reservation schools. Then it influenced in favor of the 
home school by enforcing no scheme of transfers to the non-reserva- 
tion schools and thus compelled such schools to secure students by in- 
dividually canvassing the reservations in any haphazard way that offered 
success. 

About seven years after Carlisle was established some mission 
schools, conducted in Indian languages and supported by the govern- 
ment, were required by the bureau to teach English. This occasioned 
a great outcry, especially from the Presbyterian, Episcopal and Catho- 
lic churches, but the department stood firm, and after considerable 
wrangling the order was accepted and soon its opponents became its 
friends. 

An important era in the history of the Carlisle school was the 
Chicago World's Fair. The superintendent of the school urged that 
the duty of the Indian Bureau ought to be exclusively confined to 
illustrating the educational and industrial progress of the Indian people, 
and that there should be nothing in the nature of a Wild West show 
or camp life at government expense. His argument was that Buffalo 
Bill would be there with his Wild West show, which would be ample 
illustration of that feature of the Indians, and as the bureau was for 
the sole purpose of bringing about the civilization and citizenship of 
the Indians it was manifestly out of place for it to degrade the public 

[23] 



mind and the Indian by illustrating in any way the old Indian camp 
life; His advice was rejected and the advice of ethnologists was adopt- 
ed, who planned an elaborate Indian show, in which their old Indian 
life and habits were the main features, and education and development 
in civilized pursuits was minimized. The commissioner of Indian 
affairs, after having rejected the officer's suggestions and organizing 
against him, insisted that he, the officer, should take charge of the 
Indian office exhibit, which was to be Indians from the various tribes 
living in their native huts, tepees, wigwams, etc., dressed in their 
original, native costumes and engaged in the manufacture of bead 
work, pottery, blankets, etc., of their native life, with a school in the 
camp. This the officer respectfully declined to do and asked that the 
Carlisle school be eliminated from any part of the Indian office ex- 
hibit, and he would see that Carlisle was represented at the exposition 
without cost to the government. The commissioner of Indian affairs 
was greatly offended, and from that to the end of his official career 
the relations between him and the officer were much strained. The 
officer then proposed to the commissioner that as he was not in sym- 
pathy with the bureau's purposes he had better be relieved and go to 
his regiment. This the commissioner emphatically would not agree 
to, asserting there was ample room for both methods. The officer re- 
plied they were building two different systems directly opposed to 
each other and eventually one would kill the other, that the commis- 
sioner's plan led to long drawn out bureau supervision and control 
not calculated to make independent, useful men and citizens of the 
Indians and it was impossible for Carlisle under the officer to work in 
accord with the bureau's plans and he renewed his desire to quit the 
Indian 'service. Through the commissioner's urgency the officer finally 
yielded and remained at Carlisle working against wind and tide, hope- 
less that there would be material citizenship results. The officer then 
arranged and took three hundred and twenty of his boys, divided into 
ten platoons, every boy of each platoon carrying emblems or products 
of an industry represented by that platoon, went to Chicago and took 
part in the opening ceremonies parade in 1892. A large banner was 
carried by one of the stalwart boys of the school inscribed "United 
States Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pa. Into Civilization and 
Citizenship." The march from the exposition grounds down to the 
city, throughout all the dong parade, then back to their place with the 
regular troops in Machinery Hall, covering about twenty-five miles, 
the endurance and excellence of the marching, and all the features pre- 
sented, received large public notice and praise. As they passed the 
reviewing stand filled with the governors of states, general govern- 
ment officials and officials of the exposition, these arose en masse on 
summons of J. D. Miles, one of the exposition management, and gave 
the school an ovation. All along the parade there were constant yells, 
"What's the matter with Carlisle?" "She's all right!" "Who's all 
right?" "Carhsle!" 

[24] 



General Miles, who coninianded the ])ara(le, as he reviewed the 
divisions at the close, called the officer to him, and thanking- him said: 

"Carlisle is by far the best feature of the parade." 

The expenses of this movement were met entirely through ccMitri- 
butions from friends of the school. 

The ofTpicer secured space in the educational division in the Liberal 
Arts Building as a very part of the educational exhibits of the world, 
and without cost to the government placed therein a full illustration 
from every branch of the school, educational and industrial, and all 
through the exposition kept employes and an Indian to explain to 
visitors. This exhibit also attracted vast attention. The carriage made 
hy Indian boys, which was on exhibition together with many articles of 
industry, were, at the close of the exposition, purchased by an English 
superintendent of a native school in South Africa, and shipped there 
to show the Zulu and other youth what the Indian boys and girls at 
the Carlisle school were able to accomplish. 

The prejudice of the commissioner of Indian affairs was so strong 
that although on the grounds and directly invited to come and see the 
Carlisle exhibit he refused and would not even look at it. 

The following diploma was awarded by the commissioners and the 
original hangs on the walls of the school building : 

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
By Act of Their Congress Authorized 
THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN COMMISSION 
At the International Exposition, held in the city of Chicago, State of 
Illinois, in the year 1893, to decree a medal for specific work which is 
set forth below over the name of an individual judge acting as an 
examiner, upon the finding of a board of international judges, to 
INDIAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 

EXHIBIT: WORK, PHOTOGRAPHS AND COURSE OE STUDY 

—AWARD— 

Eor excellence of methods, objects and results as a part of the 
best plan for the industrial, intellectual, patriotic, social, moral and 
spiritual training of the Indian to take his place as a member of civilized 
society ; seen, first, in his separation from savage surroundings : second, 
in wise and well fitted plans and methods of theoretical and practical 
training of boys and girls in the several years of school life, during 
which they learn the conditions of caring for health and are prepared 
for active affairs, in common studies such as reading, writing, drawing, 
arithmetic, composition, geography, music, bookkeeping and morals, 
and in industries for girls, such as household economy, needlework, 
cutting of garments, and cooking; and for boys, farming, carpentering, 
blacksmithing, harness and wagon making, the making of tinware and 
shoes, and printing; third, as seen in the outing system by which pupils 
are placed in good families where both boys and girls for a year or 

[25] 



more l^econie familiar, by observation and practice, with all the customs 
and amenities of American home life, fixing- what they have been learn- 
ing in the theory and practice of the school; fourth, as seen in the re- 
sults obtained, (a) in the outing system of 1892, which resulted in the 
earning by four hundred and four boys of $16,797.85, and two hundred 
and ninety-eight girls of $5,170.15, or a total of $21,868.90, all of which 
was placed to their individual credit, and (b) in the useful and worthy 
lives of the great majority of those who have returned to their Indian 
homes. 

(Signed) JOHN EATON, 

Individual Judge. 
(Signed) JOHN BOYD THACHER, 

Chairman Executive Committee of Awards. 
(Signed) K. BUENZ, 

Presidental Departmental Committee. 
(Signed) GEO. R. DAVIS, 

Director General. 

(Signed) T. W. PALMER, 

President World's Columbian Commission. 
(Signed) JNO. T. DICKINSON, 

Secretary World's Columbian Commission." 

In the spring of 1893 the officer informed the students that those 
who would earn and save the money to pay their expenses and so de- 
sired would be permitted to go to Chicago at the close of the summer 
outing. The report for 1894 says : 

"The most gratifying feature of our connection with the World's 
Fair was the visit made in October of four hundred and fifty of the 
students in a special train of ten coaches, leaving Carlisle at midnight 
October ist, and returning at midnight October 7th, after a most valu- 
able and instructive stay of more than four days in Chicago, during 
which time the services of the band in the different band stands, a 
concert in Festival Hall by the band and choir, and a daily parade and 
drill of one hour by a battalion of five companies of school cadets, were 
accepted by the management as earning daily entrance for the whole 
number of students to the grounds, and incidentally gave the school 
and all government Indian school work great publicity The expenses 
of this trip were paid by the students themselves with their summer 
earnings, especially favorable rates being granted by the Pennsylvania 
railroad for the use of a special train which was run to and from Chi- 
cago as a section of the fast Columbian express. I consider the outlay 
of this trip a valuable investment on the part of the students educa- 
tionally. The event constituted a lifetime memory, and is, so far as I 
know, the only instance on record of a like trip wath Indian or any 
other school." 

Though fourteen years have passed since that expedition it re- 
mains in the memory of those who participated as among the most 
significant of their experiences. The opening ceremonies parade and 

[26] 



this expedition of a lari^e ])r( )])orti( )n of the school constitute the most 
important events of the kind in its historw 

In 1892, we ])articipate(l in the C^>hnnhian jiarade in Xew York 
City, where £^"irls as well as 1)0} S were in the marchini;- cohnnns. The 
school also took p^vt in the Bi-Centennial parade in Philadeljdiia in 
1882, where we had eigdit floats on hay wai^'ons hron.i^ht from Carlisle 
on which were represented the treat}' of \Mlliam Penn and the various 
industries taught at the school, and at the head of the column marched 
a company of new pupils who had just arrived from the A\>st, tog-ether 
with some older Indians in their native dress. It was estimated that 
not far from, a million peo]:»le lined Broad street as we marched from 
far towards the north to well towards the south end. ahout seven miles, 
and back. 

]\Irs. E. G. Piatt, at that time a ladv of sixty-three, was an employe 
of the school. She had begun teaching Indians more than forty years 
prior to that and had spent the greater part of her life among the 
Pawnees. She composed a poem on the occasion, which is worthy a 
place here : 

THE INDIAN AT THE BI-CENTENNIAL. 



He marched amid the throng with stately tread. 
Like chieftain born with grace he poised his head, 
But scanning close that copper-colored face, 
No line upon it coukl you chance to trace 
To prove what passions or emotions stirred his soul 
As he strolled on in time to drum beat's roll. 
The blare of trumpets and the cvmbals clang, 
That out on every side of him in triumph rang. 
^ With stolid look he went through marble halls 
Met waving flags, 'neath arches moved and walls, 
And when the wondering eyes of all that mighty host 
Were fixed upon him, still self poised he passed. 
But well I knew that 'neath that earthen look. 
There shone a light like that which Gideon took 
And hid in pitchers for his mighty host, 
And quick resolved to break the spell at any cost. 
So as with panting breath the iron horse 
Bore us with haste along our homeward course,-^ 
I asked, ''INIy Brother, as you passed along 
With measured pace within that surging throng. 
What said your mind to you talking- within, 
Of all you saw and heard amid that mighty din?'' 
For moments mute he sat, with lips compressed, 
And hands pressed tightly to his heaving breast. 
Then with unwavering voice and steady eyes 
He looked and said, ''God made the white man wise ; 
My fathers o'er these grounds long years ago 

[27] 



In pride and darkness strode with spear and bow — 

Never to them had God in love revealed 

The wondrous wealth His hand had here concealed 

The secrets in the hearts of all these mountains round 

He never told to them — how, from out the ground, 

They could make life and wealth their hands to fill 

They never dreamed ; they only lived to kill. 

The white man came ; God gave him work and thought. 

And with these two he all these wonders wrought, 

I see today your fields and houses and your flocks, 

Your walls and towns and towers built from these rocks, 

I hear your whisper run along the wires, 

And borne on iron road by horse that never tires 

See forms arise from the deep bowxls of the earth 

At your command to light your home and warm your hearth. 

And greater still, I've seen, while passing by, 

Far more in number than the stars in sky. 

Men and their children, who with thought and toil 

Have wrought their magic from the rocks and soil ; 

And yet with such glad smiles their faces shone, 

I thought they had forgot how hard the work they've done, 

And mv mind spoke to me talking within, 

As I walked there 'mid all the rush and din, 

'These lives, this wealth, these wonders from the soil, 

Are God's good answer to the white man's toil.' " 

There were many other times when the school went as a body to 
take part in various great public demonstrations, including inaugairals 
of presidents, for every one of which there was without exception liberal 
and favorable newspaper notice, and the cause of Indian education and 
civilization and public confidence therein went forward at a rapid pace. 
On each of these occasions the school band at the head of the column 
secured universal favor. 

When the Omaha exposition occurred I found it impossible to 
get an opportunity to distinctly show the Carlisle system except as a 
very small part of the limited exhibit made by the department to cover 
all Indian schools. The overshadowing Indian' illustration at that ex- 
position was what was called 'The Indian Congress," which was alleged 
to be intended to have the leading Indians from different tribes come 
together and council about their affairs, but which was really, as carried 
out, a Wild West show of the most degenerate sort. An appropriation 
given by congress paid the Indians' expenses and salary to leave their 
homes, camp at the fair and give daily greatly exaggerated illustrations 
of their savage life. Sham battles were fought and even sham burn- 
ings at the stake and scalpings were portrayed. Many of the young 
Indians educated at the non-reservation schools, some of them grad- 
uates, were hired with government money to leave their homes and 
their farms and spend months of their time at the exposition in these 

[28] 



sensational illustrations of their wild, and, in man}- cases, long' ago 
abandoned life. In a book of photographs ^-otten ont b\- the official 
photographer of the exposition may be found nine former students and 
graduates of the Carlisle school, all painted and feather-bedecked for 
the dance. The effect, if not the intention of this, was to bring dis- 
credit upon the educated Indian and degrade and deceive the public 
mind in regard to Indians generally. Of course, the people who looked 
on knew nothing of the Indian Bureau's manipulations to accomplish 
its purposes. The fact that the government hired the Indians to do 
this and paid them with government money for doing it was never 
understood. However, it was highly ethnological and scientific and so 
satisfied people of that sort. 

AA^hen the St. Louis fair was being arranged I made extra effort, 
determined, if possible, to repeat my showing at Chicago, but soon 
found that I was thoroughly estopped and forestalled. The secretary 
of the interior was from St. Louis and, guided by the chief of the 
bureau of ethnology, was determined that the Carlisle school and its 
principles should have no opportunities to illustrate its civilizing and 
citizenizing methods and accomplishments. Here, as at Omaha, the 
wild life of the Indians was the great dominating feature, and again 
numerous educated Indians were hired to give the examples. Both 
the Omaha and St. Louis expositions were about as wise and helpful 
performances for benefiting the Indians as it would have been for the 
white race to have hired Anglo-Saxons to inij^ersonate Adam and Eve 
in the garden at the fig leaf period. 

The origin of the band is worth noting. In the summer of 1880 
the school was visited by ]\Irs. Walter Baker, proprietress of the Baker 
Chocolate Company. Things were crude and the superintendent had 
not interfered to stop Indian music, permitting the boys to have tom- 
toms and amuse themselves at reasonable hours beating their tomtoms 
and singing Indian songs. Mrs. Baker desired to do something for the 
school that would be special. While talking about it they heard the 
tomtoms and the boys singing in their dormitories. The ofificer sug- 
gested to her that she give instruments for a brass band and he would 
then detail these tomtom players and singers to blow the horns and 
beat the drums, and that the civilized music would soon drive out the 
Indian music, that he did not like to suppress their own music until 
he could give them something better and would not even then order 
the Indian music to stop but believed it would cease of itself by this 
course. She sent the instruments. The wife of one of the mechanics 
was one of the celebrated Coleman sisters, cornetists, who had, by their 
skill, attracted attention through America and Europe. As soon as 
she heard the instruments had arrived she proposed to train the boys. 
The hours were fixed and the Indian musicians detailed. ^Nlost of them 
knew nothing of civilized music, and were yet unable to speak much 
English. A schoolroom, where she had blackboards, chalk and simple 
music, was provided. She went to work and in three months reported 
that the band could play some simple tunes and would like to have 

[29] 



a place in the cvenini^ dress parades. She made herself a bloomer cos- 
tume, was instructed how to march back and forth with her band in 
front of the line, and immediately the attendance of visitors from the 
town to witness the parades was o-reatly increased. The music, crude 
at first, improved rapidly. She and her husband quit the school to 
travel a,L;ain and an old cavalry band leader, Phil Norman, was em- 
ployed, and the band was greatly enlaro'ed. Later one of the Indian 
l)oys who had g-rown u]) in the school and developed unusual musical 
ability, Dennison Wheelock, became celebrated as leader of the band 
and a composer and compiler of Indian music. After he left the school 
his brother, James Wheelock, who had also grown up in the school, 
became its leader. Its prestige during their leadership reached a high 
])oint. It continued to develope until it reached a total of sixty instru- 
ments and was widely sought for as a feature on public occasions and 
for entertainment throughout the eastern states. Vast crowds gath- 
ered to hear it play on the various band stands at the World's Fair 
in Chicago. At Buffalo it was employed and paid by the fair authori- 
ties for a month and at every performance attracted a multitude of 
listeners and much favorable notice. The development of musical 
ability illustrated by the success of the band fully established the in- 
herent possession by the Indian of a high musical quality. The school 
had for many years a most excellent choir which sang in all -the school's 
meetings. Many very sweet voices among the girls and fine strong- 
voices among the boys were found and trained so as to give great 
satisfaction at every public entertainment. 

Another feature in the development of the aesthetic cjualities of 
the Indian was the art of drawing and painting. The Indian's native 
drawings on his Buffalo robes and tepees, and his picture letters, al- 
though crude, indicated the possession of this art cjualitv in no small 
degree. Mechanical drawing was introduced in the later years of the 
school and every student placed under regular instruction for certain 
periods each week. The more talented, as developed by this system, 
were given special training and their qualities enlarged and trained 
to include form, perspective and color and it was found that in this as 
well as every other feature the Indian possessed in a fair degree the 
refining qualities we Anglo-Saxons take pride in possessing. 

Agricultural training was carried on at first on a rented farm ad- 
joining the school, then, through the purchase by friends of the school 
of a farm near Middlesex, three miles away, and later two farms were 
purchased by the government. 

The twenty-seven acres of the original Carlisle barracks property 
appears by the history to have been occupied first about 1750 as a 
rude fort to which the surrounding population might flee in case of 
attack by the Indians. The colonial authorities erected some build- 
ings, and in 1783, when Dickinson College was established, these build- 
ings were occupied for some time by the college, and there was a pre- 
liminary agreement to purchase the place and buildings for the col- 
lege for $20,000. The college management finally selected other pro- 

[30] 



f 



perty on the west side of the town and the military feature remained. 
In 180T the general government ])urehased from the Penn estate the 
original site of twenty-seven acres for the sum of $600.00, to which 
congress added for the school in 1892 the Parker farm adjoining of one 
hundred and nine acres, and in 1898 the Kuntz farm of one hundred 
and sixty-seven acres, making a total area for school uses of three 
hundred and three acres. 

In the first and critical years of the school much needed help came 
from outside sources through pecuniary aid and great personal influ- 
ence of strong friends at critical periods. 

While with the prisoners in Florida in the winter of '75-'78 there 
came into the old fort a noble man whose keen, wide-awake interest 
jn the Indians made us friends at once. He asked many cjuestions, 
looked on as the teachers taught the prisoners in their classes, inquired 
into all I was trying to do and wanted to know^ all about the Indians, 
where they came from and their condition in their homes, and then 
remarked : 

*'You are doing a blessed work, captain." 

When he was about to leave the fort he offered me a $20.00 gold 
piece to help the schools. I told him there was no need, the teachers 
gave their time free and the rude benches and limited supply of books, 
blackboards and equipment were all that was really necessary. He in- 
sisted, however, and I then told him he might give it to the lady teach- 
ers to use in connection with their classes and he then gave it to one. 
Not long after he wrote me from his home in New York and I then 
found our visitor was Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew. He continued an 
earnest friend and correspondent until his death, and the amount of en- 
couragement and pecuniary help he gave to Carlisle as well as secur- 
ing for the school the friendship of many others is beyond all computa- 
tion. His home in New York became the home of my wife and I on 
many visits to the city. He was one of the trustees for the contribu- 
tions to the school and on his death Mrs. Agnew took his place. 

Another whose unswerving friendship to the school began in Flor- 
ida was Mrs. Joseph Larocque of New York. During our last winter 
in Florida she was there with her children. She and the children soon 
became greatly interested in the prisoners. The Indians made beauti- 
ful bows and arrows for sale and by that means gained much money. 
Mrs. Larocque bought bows for her children and then hired one of the 
young Indians to teach them how to shoot, coming to the fort daily. 
This was imitated by others and originated a general system of archery, 
which brought the Indians additional money. When Mrs. Larocque 
went north she held a fair in her own home to raise money for any 
purpose in connection with what I was doing. She, her children and 
friends made articles and placed them on sale, realizing something 
over $700.00. When she informed me what she had done and asked 
me what to do with the money, I advised her to put it in the bank for 
future use. She did this, and when, a year later, I was lobbying for a 
law to establish Carlisle, that money took members of the house and 

[31] 



senate and officers of the government to Hampton to help them to 
understand something of what was proposed by the estabHshment of 
Carhsle, and when well under way at Carlisle and a piano was needed 
for assembly purposes, the balance of the money was used for that. 
Mrs. Larocque also l^ecame a trustee and a perpetual help to the school. 

A few days after the first party of children had reached Carlisle a 
Quaker lady, Miss Susan Longstreth of Philadelphia, who, with her 
sister, Mary Anna, for fifty years managed a young ladies' school in 
that city, came into my office accompanied by one of her former pupils, 
Miss Mary H. Brown. I gave them a guide and they went all around 
the school grounds. When they came back to the office they asked 
what I needed, advising I should remember that I would need many 
things and "if thee would receive, thee must ask." They insisted on 
my making a list of the things then most necessary. I made a list of 
tools and material for industrial training amounting to several bun- 
dled dollars, beginning it with a set of tinner's tools, machines and 
some material, stating under, "This is the only professorship in this 
institution I feel competent to fill." I had learned before the war, by an 
apprenticeship of four years, the trade of tinner, coppersmith and 
plumber. I then added carpenters', blacksmiths' and shoemakers' tools, 
a small printing press and some type, etc. They took the list and went 
off to a window, and I heard them saying, "I will take that," and "I 
will take that," and they told me to purchase ah I had placed on the 
list and they would send the money to pay for it. This was the be- 
ginning of the industries of the school. From that time both these 
ladies were a constant help in every time of need. 

Within a few months after the beginning of the school I conclud- 
ed to turn the old cavalry stables into shops. The department at 
Washington was asked for $1,500 for this purpose. The school was 
then supported by what was called the "Civilization Fund," which was 
not an appropriation by congress, but a fund that had been secured 
through the sale of Osage lands in Kansas which, by the treaty agree- 
ments, had been set aside for any general use of the bureau in civiliz- 
ing the Indians. It amounted to several hundred thousand dollars. 
As not only Carlisle but the schools at Forest Grove and Hampton 
were supported in the beginning from this fund, and congress had 
not yet been asked to give the money, the department saw these re- 
sources disappearing rapidly and the commissioner felt he could not 
spare the $1,500 for the shops. Dr. Agnew, being familiar with the 
matter, urged me to come to New York and stay with him and he 
would give me letters to various benevolent persons in that city and I 
could make appeals and get the money. I had written to others ni 
and about Philadelphia. I went to New York and stayed a week in 
Dr. Agnew's family and daily went out with letters he gave me. It 
was my first experience in soliciting funds and I early discovered I 
had little faculty along that line, for in a week's canvassing I secured only 
about $400.00. Feeling my want of adaptation and that I could not 
longer be absent from the school I concluded to return and get on with 

[32] 



such help as the government gave. When I reached CarHsle, a Pres- 
b3'terian minister, Rev. W. H. Miller, living at Bryn Mawr, who had 
become a friend of the school and was particularly interested in some 
of the boys, got off the car with me and we rode out to the school to- 
gether. On the way I told him of my lack of success and my intention 
to quit begging. I had written him some time before my desire for 
the shops and my failure to get the money from the government. He 
said he had written me he was coming to Carlisle to get some letters 
of introduction to different people at Indian agencies, that he wanted 
to go West and see the Indians in their homes, and that he was on his 
way West then. After getting located in his room he said he would 
go out and hunt up Henry Kendall, a young Pueblo Indian, in whom 
he was interested. As soon as he had gone Mrs. Pratt called me into 
the parlor and handing me a letter from him, said : 
"I saw by your face you knew nothing of this." 

I opened the letter and there was a check for $2,000 from this 
minister whose salary was only $1,200 a year. The letter said: "When 
father died he left my share of the estate in Tennessee state bonds. 
The debt was repudiated by the state at that time and I have waited 
for years to come into possession of my own. Recently the state de- 
cided to pay fifty cents on the dollar and I have received a part of what 
belongs to me. I now want to re-invest it at once where it will bring 
me one thousand per cent, interest. I therefore send you the enclosed 
to fix up your shops." 

The foregoing incidents are only samples of many others and are 
especially noted because this great interest led to congressional confi- 
dence and appropriations, and it is important to history that the qual- 
ity of it be recorded. I could give the names of scores of other good 
people in this country, Canada and England, and the amounts they 
contributed, and many other equally interesting experiences. 

One regret in connection with this brief history is the fact that it 
would consume much more space than the whole paper ought to cover 
to speak of acts of generous friends, of able assistants and of the 
gracious sympathy and help of many of my superiors in the govern- 
ment service, both administrative and legislative. 

In the course of the years about $150,000 was contributed, out- 
side of government, adding to the value of the government property in 
the purchase of land, erection of buildings, putting in of steam heat, 
electric light, help to meritorious students to gain a higher education, 
and in the various public demonstrations to increase the interest and 
in making our commencement occasions a success. 

As long as they were in ofifice President Hayes, Secretary Mc- 
Crary, and Secretary Schurz were all most helpful in every way. Con- 
ferences with President Hayes and the two secretaries stimulated me 
constantly to the highest exertion in carrying out the work they had 
entrusted to my care. When President Garfield came in I felt great 
confidence because I had known and served with him in the Army 
of the Cumberland, and some correspondence I had with him expos- 

[33] 



ing- post tradcrship abuses which occurred during his congressional 
career had placed me on a good footing. I called upon him soon after 
he was inaugurated to pay my respects and he immediately declared 
his purpose to visit Carlisle and bring a number of the members of 
his calMuct. His controversies with some senators held him in Wash- 
ington until the fatal shot. President Garfield had interest in the In- 
dians because he had been officially connected with the settlement of 
some of their affairs, and this added to his being distinctively an edu- 
cational man made his loss to what I was attempting to do the more 
deplorable. When the administration of President Arthur came in and 
I called on him to pay my respects, I found him exceedingly gracious, 
because he had been made acquainted with my work by his and my 
good friend. Dr. Agnew. When he appointed as his secretary of the 
interior Mr. Teller of Colorado, a western man, I felt apprehensive, 
but this disappeared immediately when I learned to know Mr. Teller. 
Mr. Teller visited Carlisle early during his secretaryship and was sev- 
eral times a guest of the school. His kindly talks to the students and 
counsel to the superintendent were invaluable. 

In his 1882 report Mr. Teller proposed a system for the general 
education of Indian youth by taking them from their reservation homes 
and putting them in contact with our own people through industrial 
schools already established and creating others in our best communi- 
ties. He stated: 

"With liberal appropriations it is quite possible to provide for the 
education of ten thousand Indian youth in manual labor schools dur- 
ing the fiscal year 1884, and at least twice that number during the 
fiscal year 1885. 

The care, support and education of ten thousand Indian youths 
during the fiscal year 1884 ought not to exceed $2,500,000, and with the 
increased number of children there ought to be a reduction in the cost, 
and the expenses of twenty thousand children ought not to exceed 
$4,000,000 per annum. To the twenty thousand costing annually 
$4,000,000 ought each year to be added not less than one-fourth that 
number, which at the same expense per capita will necessitate an ad- 
ditional appropriation of $1,000,000 and the account will stand thus: 

10,000 fiscal year 1884, computing the cost at $200 each $2,000,000 

20,000 children fiscal year 1885 at $200 each 4,000,000 

25,000 children fiscal year 1886 at $200 each 5,000,000 

30,000 children fiscal year 1887 at $200 each 6,000,000 

25,000 children fiscal year 1888 at $200 each 5,000,000 

''The per capita allowance is greater than the cost at the agency 
boarding schools, but these schools are not kept up more than nine or 
ten months, while this estimate is for attendance for the full calendar 
year. 

"At the close of the fiscal year 1887 ten thousand children, having 
completed their school course, can be discharged, leaving with the five 
thousand to be added for the fiscal year 1888 twenty-five thousand. 
Ten thousand of these may be discharged at the end of the fiscal year 

[34] 



t 



1888 lcaviii£^-, with the acUHtion of five thousand, t\vent>' thousand for 
the fiscal ^•ear 1889; and ever\- year thereafter one-fourth of the whole 
number may be discharged and a like number added. Thus, at the end 
of the fiscal year 1890 there will have been discharged twenty thousand 
children who will be able to take care of and support themselves ; and 
the total expense of the education of this number with those remain- 
ing in school will not exceed $22,500,000, or about two-thirds of the 
amount of money expended for the suppression of Indian hostilities 
during- the years 1865 and 1866. 

"Since 1872, a period of ten years, the cost of Indian hostilities and 
military protection against the Indian is estimated by the military au- 
thorities at $223,801,254.50, or an annual expenditure of $22,369,126.45. 
To this must be added the yearly appropriation for subsistence, which 
averages about five millions a year. To this must be added the loss 
of life and the horrors of an Indian war, only to be understood by 
those who have had the misfortune to be participants or witnesses of 
them. This cannot be computed in dollars, but ought co be considered 
in determining the policy of the government in its dealings with the 
Indians." 

Mr. Teller's proposition w^as discussed for three days in the senate 
and was championed by some of the most influential senators. Sena- 
tor Hoar led the list, but the grip of organized greed, the narrowness 
of ethnologists and some organizations which had been puttering away 
for a couple of centuries was too strong for such a statesmanlike pro- 
position. The Indians have always suffered greatly from self-constitut- 
ed friends. This plan recognized the fact that his civilization and citi- 
zenship could be easily accomplished and made these, as they ought 
a'ways to have been, the paramount feature in the Indian problem. 
The opponents of it w^ere those who, for their own uses, wanted to keep 
the Indian as he was, and whose occupations depended on tribal co- 
hesion, also those who made the land of the Indian and its manipula- 
tion the greatest feature of the problem. The fight for lands in severalty 
then on was alleged to be ''emancipation'' fo rthe Indians, and in vain 
did those of us who contended for Mr. Teller's ideas call attention to 
the fact that ownership of land did not civilize, that giving lands in 
severalty added absolutely nothing to the equipment of the Indian in 
civilization or for his citizenship and that having lands given him there 
was all the more need for his education. 

The ''cart before the horse" principle of giving the Inchans lands 
before we have ecjuipped them wath the skill to use and the ability and 
the good sense to hold the same is now apparent all over the Indian 
field. Lands in severalty and the leasing of his lands by the Indian 
agents have perpetuated some of the earlier treaty provisions of giving 
food without labor, which cultivates worthlessness and opened the 
way for continued graft. 

When Mr. Teller was secretary I was receiving large donations 
of money to help along the Carlisle work. I stated to Mr. Teller that 
I did not like the responsibility in connection with it, and wished that 

[35] 



I mit^ht in some way be relieved or protected and asked him to advise 
what to do. He suggested that as I had bought a farm with some of 
the gifts I execute a deed of trust in favor of a board of trustees. 
General R. M. Henderson, alwa3^s our wise counsellor, friend and 
nearest and most valuable neighbor at Carlisle, drew up such a deed. 
The first trustees were C. R. Agnew and A. S. Larocque of New York 
City ; Joseph C. McCammon, of Washington, D. C. ; Miss Susan Long- 
streth, Daniel M. Fox, James E. Rhoads and William McMichael, of 
Philadelphia ; Albert K. Smiley, of New Paltz, N. Y. ; M. C. Thaw, of 
Pittsburg; Wistar Morris, of Overbrook, Pa.; Robert M. Henderson, 
J. A. McCauley and R. H. Pratt, of Carlisle. These trustees elected as a 
local executive committee. Judge Henderson, Dr. McCauley and myself, 
who had immediate charge and audited the charity accounts. When 
Dr. McCauley died the Rev. Dr. Norcross of Carlisle, was elected to 
fill his place and for years we three attended to the details of the trus- 
teeship. Substantial help came from all these trustees and their suc- 
cessors. 

Hon. H. L. Dawes, senator from Massachusetts, was chairman of 
the Indian committee in the senate, and early in i88t wrote showing 
great interest in the school and in Indian education generally. We 
corresponded freely during all the years thereafter, until after his re- 
tirement from the senate. His committee room was my headcjuarters 
whenever I was in the capitol. He was constantly seeking information 
and making suggestions. Accompanied by his wife and daughter he 
often visited the school, especially on commencement occasions. He 
was in a position to help the school and many times in the senate he 
defended it, advanced its interests and increased its appropriation. 
While there were others in both house and senate exceedingly friendly 
and helpful, no legislator in all the years took a more lively interest 
and gave stronger help than Mr. Dawes. Were it practicable in this 
limited paper to do so it would afiford me great pleasure to introduce 
some of his letters in my possession. 

Dr. M. B. Anderson, the great president of Rochester University, 
visited Saint Augustine in the winter of '77-8 and frequently came to 
the old fort to see the Indians, the daily school, and to talk about 
them and their interests with the officer. The officer urged that the 
Indians only needed education in the English language, and training 
in our industries, which could be easily given, and then they would be 
able to quit their tribal life and cope with us in our affairs and become 
a very part of our people. This had been the talk of the officer for 
years and to emphasize it he usually illustrated it by citing that every 
year we took in a good many more low grade foreign emigrants than 
we had Indians and welcomed them as a very part of our population, 
and having this welcome they passed out among us and were absorbed. 
The blacks, numbering more than thirty times as many as the Indians, 
and a lower race, had been brought from the torrid zone, and by be- 
ing distributed among us had forgotten their languages and habits and 
acquired ours. The officer constantly urged that the real disaster to 

[36] 



the Indian was the Inu'cau nianao'cment ; that a Hkc l)urcau control for 
the neoTo or any one of the several races of foreii^'ners comino" to 
America and the segregation which successfnl bureau management 
compels w^ould retard and keep in perpetual race and foreign condi- 
tions the people so bureauized. 

Soon after this the officer went to Washington to see about the re- 
lease of the prisoners, and Dr. Anderson gave him letters to General 
John Eaton, United States Commissioner of Education, and President 
Seelye of Amherst College, who was then a member of the house of 
representatives. These letters made both of these eminent men firm 
friends of the officer during the remainder of their lives. President 
Seelye, when he returned to Amherst College, was especially interest- 
ed in the Carlisle method of student government and by his careful in- 
quiries and approval of it, and his subsequent establishment of wdiat 
he called "The Congress," which was student government for Amherst, 
indicated that he had adopted to some extent the CarUsle method for 
that great institution. 

General Eaton, from his high national position as commissioner 
of education, noted the Carlisle work favorably in his reports and be- 
came one of the most useful and welcome visitors at every commence- 
ment season at Carlisle for twenty years. On these occasions he 
always took prominent part in showing and explaining the work of the 
school to visitors. Standing on a chair or table with a room full of 
people in the schoolroom, sloyd department, or in the shops, from 
his thorough knowledge of all lines of practical education, he made 
plain to bodies of visitors what was being done. He several times 
addressed the school, delivered the diplomas at graduation, and the 
officer never ceased to feel grateful to Dr. Anderson for bringing hira 
into such helpful relations with two such grand men. 

The opponents of the Carlisle school finally became prolific in 
Sunday newspapers with stories of its alleged graduates, which were 
false in every particular, the names, locations and acts being without 
any foundation in fact. 

In 1897 the Indian Bureau, guided by unusual fairness and 
common sense, required all Indian agents and the reservation school 
people to report upon the conduct and usefulness of every student re- 
turned from a non-reservation school. This report showed that 76 
per cent, were doing well. In 1901 a still more exacting investigation 
by the bureau showed that 86 per cent, of such returned students were 
demonstrating that the non-reservation system was a success. This 
information is the more significant because gathered by reservation 
officials not friendly to the outside schools. These facts and full details 
can be found in the Indian commissioner's reports for 1898 and 1902. 

There has been a proportion of failures, but a careful investigation 
shows as fair success as ought to be anticipated. The most significant 
feature of adverse criticism has been the entire absence of any allegation 
that reservation graduates and graduates of schools near the Indians 
turned out as well. A valuable and pertinent official inquiry would be 

[37] 



one to discover what becomes of the home school products and then 
an unlMased ccMiiparison. 

There are many other features, persons and incidents that call for 
mention, but already this paper is too lon^ and I must leave them for 
the larger space of a proposed book. I cannot close, however, with- 
out giving" a few general personal statements and an expression of 
some views born of these experiences. It has long been a question 
in my mind as to whether eleemosynary institutions were really cures 
or builders of the conditions they are established to remedy. Are poor 
houses corrective ? Established at considerable expense, they must 
be kept filled in order to justify that expense and the employment of 
the necessary keepers. Are not their privileges too often greatly 
abused? Would it not be better for them if the inmates had to struggle 
on as parts of the masses instead of being separated and saved from 
the struggle ? Does a system of taking children out of the body politic 
and putting them in reformatories really reform? Are soldiers' or- 
phan schools a real beneficence ? Does separating them from the ac- 
tivities of our general life and putting them into institutions where 
they are educated and trained separate and apart from all other chil- 
dren at the expense of the state really give them the best help? Do 
not these contrivances of our civilization too often put the stamp of de- 
pendence and the stigma of class upon the individuals ? And do they 
not tend to cultivate in them the idea that the state owes them a living? 

There were no poor houses or other such institutions, except a 
few hospitals, in Japan that I could hear of when I was there nineteen 
years ago, but the energy of the people was in evidence everywhere, 
and it seemed impossible to find a rickshaw man or a coolie who could 
not read and write. The public school and the home did the educating 
and the manly independence and happiness of the lower classes seemed 
a good example to our great America. Even the blind were taught 
to take care of themselves. Often we heard their doleful whistle and 
saw a blind man or woman feeling their way along the streets. Inquiry 
developed that they were trained masseurs and as they passed along 
and signaled their presence by their whistle they were called into homes 
to drive away aches and pains and help the sick. I took treatment of 
one and found a skill and knowledge of nerves and muscles and fine 
manipulation scarcely equalled by the best masseurs of our own race. 
The blind were at home with the people everywhere, and their afflic- 
tion did not operate to set them aside as among us. 

Our Indian Bureau system has for a long time appeared to me 
a contrivance designed and operated to keep the Indians perpetually 
apart from real opportunities and hindered from becoming a real part 
of our industries and population. Because the original inhabitants they 
were surely entitled to nobler treatment. Having such poor house 
supervision, so to speak, it was a natural result that every influence of 
the supervision itself should accentuate its own importance and per- 
petuity. Remoteness and hindrance to development are the prime 

[38] 



factors in such control; therefore all intlnences contributing- to this 
control are conserved. 

Experience shows that the very best contrivances of our civiliza- 
tion niav be easily utilized to perpetuate ^-reat wron^. Reli.8:ion and 
education, the crowning- forces of our civilization and proi^'ress, are 
easily perverted into engines of hindering and wronging peoples, classes 
and races. 

In the days of the I^ilgrim Fathers there was then, as now, both 
broadness and narrowness towards the Indians. The broadness was 
in the people themselves, illustrated in 1672 by the following act: 

"For settling the Indian title to lands in this jurisdiction it is de- 
sired and ordered by the court, and authority thereof, that what lands 
any of the Indians in this jurisdiction have possessed and improved by 
subduing the same, they have a just right unto, according to that in 
Genesis 1,26 and Chapter IX, i, Psalms CXV, 16. And for the fur- 
ther encouragement of the hopeful work amongst them for the civiliz- 
ing and helping them forward to Christianity, if any of the Indians 
shall be brought to civility, and shall come amongst the English to in- 
habit in any of their plantations, and shall there live civilly and orderly, 
that such Indians shall have allotments among- the English, according- to 
the customs of the English in like case." 

This was an Indian platform which meant unity and abolished dif- 
ference. It was America and Christianity without discount. The dis- 
count came at the hands of the church, which insisted that the Indians 
should be in communities by themselves. John Eliot, working in op- 
position and not knowing the fact that the Indians could learn to read 
and understand English just as quickly as their own language, trans- 
lated the Bible into the language of one of the tribes of Massachusetts 
which nobody now can read, and established missions to hold them to- 
gether remote from the colonists, and thus he discouraged associa- 
tion and any unity of interest. "You may have our Christianity, but 
you are not to be with us and of us,", has been much of, but not always, 
the spirit and method of the church among the Indians of America 
from that day to this. 

It was not to be wondered at then that Carlisle school early in 
the day found large feeling and ef¥ort against its ideas and purposes 
among the church workers in Indian communities. A prominent mis- 
sionary within a few weeks after the establishment of Carlisle wrote a 
long dissertation to our greatest educational journal in which he ad- 
vanced his reasons why Carlisle was not a proper movement for the 
elevation of the Indians. The gist of his argument was that they were 
only to be lifted up in tribal masses ; therefore, the missionary methods 
are the only proper ones. The Carlisle argument against this was that 
man is the unit and all development throughout the history of the 
world has been and must continue an individual process. 

Another influence against Carlisle and its principles was the eth- 
nologists. The then chief of the United States Bureau of Ethnology 
soon attacked the purposes of Carlisle, but at once gave away the weak- 

[39] 



ness of his own and proved the truth of CarHsle's position. He alleged 
that it was of the greatest importance that the origin, history, old life, 
habits, languages and customs of the Indian tribes should be gathered 
and recorded by his bureau before they were forgotten by the Indians 
and that if the Carlisle schools and their purposes were successful, his 
object, which would take many years, could not be brought to a suc- 
cessful accompHshment. The answer of the superintendent of Carlisle 
to that was John Adams' view in a letter to Thomas JefTerson on the 
28th of June, 1812 : 

"Whether serpents' teeth were sown here and sprung up men ; 
whether men. and women dropped from the clouds upon this Atlantic 
island ; whether the Almighty created them here, or whether they emi- 
grated from Europe, are questions of no moment to the present or 
future happiness of man. Neither agriculture, commerce, manufac- 
tures, fisheries, science, literature, taste, religion, morals or any other 
good will be promoted, or any evil averted, by any discoveries that can 
be made in answer to these questions." 

At one time while the ethnologists were endeavoring to hinder 
the non-reservation school idea it Avas discovered and published that 
nine sons of government officials, including the then commissioner of 
Indian affairs and members of congress, were employed by that bureau 
in alleged ethnological research among the Indians of the West at a 
genial season of the year and at the cost for expense and good salaries 
to the government appropriation for that bureau. This, however, was 
before the days of civil service. 

Among the other assertions of its enemies against Carlisle to dis- 
credit the school with the public and also to alarm the Indians have 
been rather persistent allegations that it was unhealthy and suffered par- 
ticularly from tuberculosis. The map illustrating the densit}^ of tubercu- 
lar areas throughout the United States printed in the last census report 
shows the Cumberland Valley is one of the districts most free from 
that disease in this country. If proper records have been kept and are 
available at agencies and schools the truth of this census showing will 
be established so far as the Indians are concerned by comparing Car- 
lisle's record with that of the agencies and most favorably located 
schools. That there is danger in the change of climate and altitude as 
alleged is a myth. 

In 1879 the number of Indian children attending school one month 
or more during the year was 7,193. All Indian schools, with the ex- 
ception of a very small number under the care of different churches, 
were boarding schools on reservations, and on no reservation was there 
anything but a moiety of accommodation necessary for the total num- 
ber of children. Intelligent and earnest agents, therefore, welcomed 
the additional school privileges offered by Carlisle, Chemawa, Haskell 
and other non-reservation schools. Some agents were exceptionally 
urgent and friendly to their young people going away. Foremost 
among these was John D. Miles, in charge of the Cheyennes and 
Arapahoes, who at once sent to Carlisle a large company of his best 

[40] 



children l)y Okaliaton, llic ionncr Morida i)ris()iKM- whom I sent alter 
the first party, and Aj^-ent Hayworth of the Kiowas and Comanehes 
also sent children promj^tly hy Etahdleidi. lioth these a.'^cnts helon^cd 
to the Society of Frien<ls, who have alwa\ s been foreni(!St in wise help 
to the race. Others conld be named, bnt these were the very first. 

Among- the first pni)ils from the extreme West was a party of 
Pueblos and Apaches brougdit by Dr. Sheldon Jackson, then in charge 
of the Presbyterian missions in the West. For manv years since he 
has had charge of government educational work in Alaska and many 
of the Carlisle pupils from there came through his influence. 

The non-reservation schools increased in numbers and grew in 
importance, and the intelligence of their pupils soon began to interfere 
with the long established system of dealing with the Indians through 
interpreters. Young Indians who had gone to these schools and 
learned to understand and speak English well were piesent at councils 
and occasions of importance between their people and the government 
officials, and sometimes interposed to give their people the true under- 
standing where the old, domineering interpreter had construed to suit 
his purposes or some interest which he served. These incidents and 
results were not always welcome. Acts of such capable students that 
could be criticized were utilized to disparage such wider education for 
Indians. On one occasion the superintendent of Carlisle was in Wash- 
ington and called upon the secretary of the interior. It so happened 
the chiefs of two dififerent tribes had brought suit against the govern- 
ment of the United States for violation of treaty agreements, and the 
suit was pending in the government court for such cases in Washington. 
The chiefs had brought two Carlisle graduates to Washington to act 
as interpreters. The presence of these educated Indians was perfectly 
legitimate in every way and certainly creditable to their developed 
capacity. The secretary did not see it in that wav and he indulged 
in unreasonable abuse of the school and its superintendent, because the 
school turned out ability of that sort. The facts were, the Indian chiefs 
were either right or wrong;- in their contention, and as they had perfect 
right and had submitted their discontent to the duly constituted court 
for determine tion, they were entitled to praise instead of censure. And 
so in a greater or less degree it went on all over the field. It was plain 
to be seen that the whole bureau and Indian system was finding out 
it could only maintain its domination and supervision through keeping 
the Indian ignorant and inexperienced. This it could do in part by 
hindering those schools which gave Indian youth the best education, 
ideas and experience in civilization and citizenship, and urging that the 
home school, especially the day school, which gave the least education 
and least experience, was the best for the Indians. The argument was 
in part the same as that of the church, that the Indians must become 
civilized in tribal masses, and also that sepaiation of children from par- 
ents was cruel. The answer of Carlisle to these assertions was that 
civilization and citizenship are in either and every case wholly individual 
and purely the result of environment and training and the quality of 

[41] 



the environment and training- fixes the quaHty of the result and that the 
real cruelty was in keeping- them ignorant and an encumbrance on the 
body politic. 

It can be seen the whole purpose of the Carlisle school from the 
beginning was to make its pupils equal as individual parts of our civili- 
zation. This has always seemed to me the one great duty of the gov- 
ernment towards them. Indian schools, as I have always contended, 
should be temporary, but the schools which hold them together as 
tribes and separate as a people are obstructive and, therefore, the least 
necessary and should be dispensed wuth first. Unquestionably the 
great o1:)ject to be aimed at should be to have all Indian youth in schools 
and eventually no purely Indian schools; then and then only is the 
problem of their proper education really solved. 

In 1892 Public Opinion asked me for a pronouncement on Indian 
education. My sentiments at that time are a suitable close for this 
paper : 

''The kind of education that will end the Indian problem, by saving 
the Indian to material usefulness and good citizenship, is made up of 
four separate and distinct parts, in their order of value as follows : 

"First : Usable knowledge of the language of the country. 

''Second : Skill in some civilized industry that will enable success- 
ful competition. 

"Third: Courage of civilization which will enable abandonment of 
the tribe and successful living among civilized people. 

"Fourth: Knowledge of books, or education so-called. 

"In justice to itself the g:overnment can have but one aim in all it 
may do for the Indians, and that is to transform them into worthy, 
productive American citizens. The vital question is, can the material 
be made to yield the desired product? 

"The Indian is a man like other men. He has no innate or in- 
herent qualities that condemn him to separation from other men or to 
generations of slow development. He can acquire all the above quali- 
ties in about the same time that other men acquire them, and is hin- 
dered or facilitated in acquiring them only bv systems and environ- 
ment that would ecjually hinder or facilitate other men in acquiring the 
same qualities. If the Indian has not had a chance to acquire these 
qualities he is not to be blamed for not having them. If he is not now 
acquiring them as rapidly as he might and ought, it is because he is 
hindered by the contrivances we have forced upon him. 

"Take the first cpiality, that of a 'usable knowledge of the language 
of the country.' How is a usable knowledge of any language to be 
best and most quickly learned? Manifestly, by associating with those 
who use it. All peaple learn their own mother tongue in that way. 
Neither books nor special teachers are necessary. Simply such associa- 
tion as will place the person to be taught where he can hear the lan- 
guage constantly in use. Wise American parents desiring their chil- 
dren to become proficient in the German or French languages send 
them to Germany or France to live in a German or French family, 

[42] 



Why not then contrive that the Tnchan ha\-e this same ()])])( )rtunity to 
learn the ahnost nniversal lani^iiai^-e of the conntr\- in whicli he Hves 
and which he must learn in order to be at one with the i^-reat l)ody 
of the people. 

"Tn doin^^- this service for the Indian in this reall\- necessarv way 
wc come to the second and cquall}' important quality to be acquired: 
'Skill in stMiie civilized industry that wdll enable successful conq^ctition.' 
How is this to be gained? The answer is practically the same. The 
best agricultural school is the agriculturalist himself on his own farm. 
If we want a l)oy to become a farmer w^e put him on a farm where 
the daily pressure of necessity to get the work done bears upon him, 
and where a living and something more hinges upon skill, industry 
and intelligent management. In the same w^ay, if we w^ant a boy to be- 
come a blacksmith or a carpenter, a blacksmith shop or a carpenter 
shop wdth a competent head and surrounded by competent w^orkmen 
is the place. Working with the farmer and mechanic the boy learns 
what a real day's w^ork is and becomes in every w^ay a very part of the 
situation. The same course is needed if the boy has the ability and is 
to succeed in professional life. To be a law^yer he must associate and 
contend wdth lawwers. 

"If the w^a}' to the acquirement of the first tW'O qualities necessary 
in the education of the Indian is properly indicated above, then the 
w^ay to get the third and most vital quality solves itself. 

"The courage of civilization, like the courage for battle or any 
other phase of life, is best and only to be acquired by experience. 

''For the Indian, then, the language of civilization is quickest and 
best gained, the industry and skill of civilization is quickest and best 
gained, and the courage of civilization is quickest and best gained by 
his being immersed in these influences. But the Indian must become 
individual. The tribes and all tribalizers and tribalizing influences are 
enemies of the individual, for immersed in the tribe how is the indi- 
vidual to take on successfully anything foreign to the tribe ? 

"Book-education logically comes last. If a man speaks the lan~ 
o^uaee of the countrv, is skilled in some industrv of the countrv, has 
the courage of the country, and practices these qualities, he is a useful 
citizen wdthout a knowledge of books. The first are the foundation 
qualities. Book-education enlarges and embellishes language power, 
industrial powxr and courage powder. These three qualities being requi- 
site to accomplish the transit of the Indian from tribal to national alleg- 
iance, the door of education must open wide the w^ay to full chance 
for enlarging these qualities that no slavish restraint on manhood op- 
press and discourage the ambition to compete and rise. 

"The school, its aim and location now assume importance as fac- 
tors. If the language, industry and courage of civilization needed can 
best be gained in the environment of civilization in wdiich the subject 
is to contend, where shall the book-education be given? There is only 
one right answer, and that is, let all the qualities grow together in the 
subject. Give him schools in the environment of civilization; but bet- 

[43] 



ter still, put him in civilization's schools. Do not feed America to the 
Indian, which is a tribalizing and not an Americanizing process, but 
feed the Indian to America, and America will do the assimilating and 
annihilate the problem." 

All this an Indian Bureau, willing to die that it may live as the 
benefactor of the race, can easily and quickly do for all our Indian 
youth whenever its accomplishment is inflexibly determined and direct- 
ed by administration and congress. 

Denver, Col., Feb. 27, 1908. 



S8. 



[44] 




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